If you’re peeking over the fence to see what’s on the other side, you’ve fallen prey to a clutter problem.
One of the symptoms of a cluttered mind is comparisons (see all 8 here). This one is a doozy. Pretty much a plague, comparing ourselves to someone else is like a disease, putting us at odds, making us feel less than, handicapped.
Comparisons amount to superlative judgments. It is deliberately taking two things and pitting them against each other for the sake of choosing a preference, or winner. It feels like judging two options to decide which is preferred.
It is searching for bigger and better, chasing faster and stronger.
We compare:
- shoes
- lunches
- careers
- salaries
- bodies
- lifestyles
- houses
- cars
- families
- friends
- instagram fame
- facebook likes
- etc., etc.
We compare so much, where does that leave us? Feeling pretty shitty.
Comparisons lead to judgment, prejudice, fear, envy, pride and insecurity.
There’s always going to be something out there that seems out of our reach. We might as well use it to entertain us and enhance our experience on earth. Seeing the varying manifestations of life is beautiful and proves there’s abundance all around.
The Other Side Of The Fence
With comparisons comes this idea of duality, there being a divide between 2 things.
Comparing anything against something else presupposes there’s good and bad, better and worse, ethical and unethical, moral and immoral, humane and inhumane. That one falls in either category.
But that is an illusion. Labels, of whatever merit or value, are illusions. Mere words subject to interpretation.
There is no getting to “better,” only different. There is no “best,” only changed.
Improvement is subjective.
Your Side Of The Fence
What’s happening on your side of the fence? That’s where your attention does fruitful work. Focusing outside of yourself leaves you wallowing in “what ifs.”
What if I was this..? What if I was that..? What if I had this..? What if I didn’t have that..?
Rather than comparing impossible from possible, rags from riches, ask yourself, “what is here for me?”
What can I glean from what I’m seeing? Does it inspire change in me? Does it inspire me to get off my butt and go after my dreams?
If I’m longing for something different, what is that? And how can I show up and BE that change?
There Is No Fence
Comparisons are based on lack—being without or not having enough.
Comparisons get their power from thinking you lack something, or thinking they have what you don’t. Or thinking you look and act a certain way and are therefore superior.
Thinking one way is more advantageous than another. Thought versus thought.
But everything is what it is.
Seen through lens of comparison, that’s where the vision gets muddled.
There is no fence except the ones we build. There only exists plenty, enough, everything and always. Goodness, richness, beauty, love. Fences can’t sever that truth.
Without a fence, we can share, we can collaborate, we can appreciate.
Before you build a fence of comparison, ask,
How is this separation a reflection of me and my own resistance to what is?
What am I hoping was different and why?
What am I trying to deny?
How am I preventing my own abundance?
When you have your answer in mind, is it possible to view it differently with, instead of a divisive mentality (a lack mentality), an abundance mentality?
In an abundance mindset, what you are lacking is what you’re not giving. What you’re “without” is what you’re resisting to be “with.” So change that. Get a different outlook.
I like the analogy Earl Nightingale used back in the 50s:
The mind is like soil, it will return to us what we plant.
How we landscape our own gardens, tend to our own grass, is what we’ll get in return.
If we plant condescending, belittling thoughts, we’ll get more to feel condescended and belittled about.
Comparisons show us that we’re not accepting ourselves. That we’re fighting against who we are as if we can exchange the package we came in.
You are enough. And she is enough. And he is enough.
You might just need a shift in mindset to see that.
The grass is greener where you water it. And the water won’t ever run out. So water all day, everyday. Water yours, water hers, water his.
With enough water, everyone’s grass will be green.
Truth is, high above the comparisons, viewed from the sky, it had never been any other color.